xxvi, 671 pages : 23 cm

Ordeal by Fire blends the most up-to-date scholarship with interpretations based on decades of teaching, research, and writing, to tell an important story -- that of the American Civil War and Reconstruction. Written by a leading Civil War historian and Pulitzer Prize winner, this text describes the social, economic, political, and ideological conflicts that led to a unique, tragic, and transitional event in American history. The fourth edition welcomes the addition of coauthor James Hogue of University of North Carolina, Charlotte. Hogue brings his Reconstruction expertise to the third section of the book, bringing more up-to-date scholarship and interpretations to the story of repairing a nation.--Publisher

First published in 1982

Includes bibliographical references and index

Prologue: The Setting of Conflict -- Part One: The Coming of War. American Modernization, 1800-1860 -- The Antebellum South -- The Ideological Conflict over Slavery -- Texas, Mexico, and the Compromise of 1850 -- Filibusters, Fugitives, and Nativists -- Kansas and the Rise of the Republican Party -- The Deepening Crisis, 1857-1859 -- The Critical Year, 1859-1860 -- Secession and the Coming of War -- Part Two: The Civil War. A Brothers' War: The Upper South -- Mobilizing for War -- The Balance Sheet of War -- The War at Home and Abroad -- The Springtime of Northern Hope -- Jackson and Lee Strike Back -- Slavery and the War: Northern Politics, 1861-1862 -- The First Turning Point: Antietam and Emancipation -- The Winter of Northern Discontent -- The Second Turning Point: Gettysburg, Vicksburg, and Chattanooga -- War Issues and Politics in 1863 -- Behind the Lines -- Wartime Reconstruction and the Freedpeople -- Military Stalemate, 1864 -- The Third Turning Point: The Election of 1864 -- The End of the Confederacy -- Part Three: Reconstruction. The Problems of Peace -- The Origins of "Radical Reconstruction" -- Reconstruction and the Crisis of Impeachment -- The First Grant Administration -- Making of the New Regime in the South, 1869-1872 -- Social and Economic Reconstruction -- The Retreat from Reconstruction -- The New South -- Epilogue

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